The best tips for starting a painting business are to get insured, hand out business cards and fliers, and have before and after pictures to show prospective clients. A big part of starting a painting business is selling the service, and the best tips take this into account. For example, not only does being insured help when the owner or an employee of the painting business breaks something on a customer’s property, it is another way to stand out from the crowd. In addition, business cards and fliers are relatively inexpensive ways to advertise. Lastly, before and after pictures can be shown to potential customers to demonstrate a business’s expertise and attention to detail.
Business insurance helps pay for damages to a customer’s home, should something unexpected happen while completing a job. It can help a new painting business owner from going bankrupt due to an accident. Insurance can be a major selling point when mentioned on advertisements. In fact, a lot of small companies are quick to point out their insurance policies. Some people are more likely to purchase services from relatively unknown businesses, knowing that property damage is covered by an insurance company.
It is normal to have little money or be in debt to a bank when starting a painting business. Some inexpensive ways to advertise are fliers stuck to mailboxes or cars and business cards to hand out to acquaintances. A fledgling business often cannot rely on word-of-mouth alone, so being proactive with even the cheapest forms of advertisement is key to starting a painting business. After some profit has been made, the business owner can place ads in newspapers, phone books, or even Internet-based ads on websites related to painting. To maximize the effectiveness of each ad, it is important to advertise to a targeted audience, meaning the ad should be placed where someone who needs a paint job might look.
Even if a business owner has professional fliers and insurance, potential customers still have no idea of his or her painting skill. Before and after photos are proof of a person’s trade skills. The business does not even need a first customer to get such photos. Business owners can give a makeover to a room in their own house or a friend’s, taking care to capture good quality pictures with the owner’s permission. In a photo editing program, these pictures can be shrunk and cropped to fit onto fliers or just used as stand-alone evidence to show potential customers during estimate meetings.